Over the past 30 years there has been an increasing recognition of, and interest in, a concept often called "sustainability." Sustainability is a complex and sometimes challenging dialectical concept, much like beauty, justice, democracy, and equality, etc. By dialectical I mean it is difficult to analytically define the term; more commonly you have to discuss the matter conceptually and show examples to illustrate your arguments. Dialectical issues are often considered 'soft' or 'fuzzy' because they include a lot of qualitative, even philosophical, aspects. But this doesn't mean they are not important or lightweight. In fact some of the most important issues in our society are dialectical, such as justice (i.e., what is justice?), democracy (i.e., what does democracy really mean?), and human rights (i.e., what does it mean to have human rights?).

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